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As we begin 2013, we're stuck in a kind of tablet limbo. Most companies rushed to get devices out for the fall, while the models we saw at CES 2013 aren't yet shipping. As such, it's a mostly familiar deck, with Apple, Google and Microsoft once again striving for the top spot. That said, there are new entries from Amazon and ASUS, and many of us who didn't score some sweet loot this holiday season have a slate-sized pile of cash to spend. If you're in that situation, continue on for our first tablet guide of 2013.

Note: If you're looking for tablets with an Atom or Core i5 CPU, you'll find those in our forthcoming laptop buyer's guide, since they have the same guts as notebooks (or netbooks, in some cases). For the purposes of this tablet guide, we define tablets as slate-type devices with low-power ARM processors.

American carriers love to launch their device lines in bundles, and AT&T just proved the rule in style. Forget the LTE iPad mini -- six other devices have shipped in one day, covering just about every category Big Blue offers. Want a Windows tablet? There's a $500 ASUS VivoTab RT waiting for you. Smartphones? HTC's $200 One X+ covers the high-end, while its $50 One VX and Samsung's $100 Galaxy Express target the more frugal among us. Even shutterbugs and cutting-edge networkers can pick up a $500 Samsung Galaxy Camera or Novatel's $50 MiFi Liberate hotspot. There's no doubt that AT&T is cramming the channel full of new gadgets in the hopes of scooping up all the Black Friday sales it can, but we'll forgive the slightly cynical strategy for the sake of a wider device selection.

We've known for some time that AT&T would sell an LTE version of ASUS' VivoTab RT tablet running Windows RT, but until today we just had the vague promise that it would arrive "in time for the holidays" (Christmas, Hanukkah, Flying Spaghetti Monster Day, take your pick). Well, now we know: AT&T just issued announced the 4G VivoTab RT will go on sale this week, on November 16th, with a list price of $500. For a limited time, at least, that price includes the keyboard dock you see pictured above. (The press release says it comes with a "Mobile dock with a keyboard and additional battery," as if they're separate pieces of hardware, but that's just some sly wording: the keyboard dock has a battery built in.)

Additionally, AT&T is running a promotion in which users get $100 off the VivoTab RT (or any other AT&T tablet) after purchasing a Windows Phone handset. If you read the fine print in the press release at the link, you'll see that AT&T is requiring a two-year agreement for both the phone and tablet. Buy the tablet unsubsidized, though, and you can add it to an existing data share plan for $10 and up per month. Either way, is it worth the added data fees? We'll leave that to you, but we would suggest you pay particular attention to the software section of our review: this thing was awfully buggy when we tested it.

Read the comments on any of our ASUS Transformer Pad reviews. It doesn't matter if you pick the mid-range TF300 or the high-end Infinity. You'll invariably find someone saying, "That's nice, but can't it run Windows 8?" It's a perfectly sane request: sure, a tablet and optional keyboard dock make for a convenient setup, but how great would it be if you could use that keyboard to get work done in Microsoft Office? Ditto for the dock's USB port: being able to plug in a thumb drive is a good start, but it'd be even sweeter if you could drag and drop files, as you would on a PC.

Well, ladies and gents, you can quit your fantasizing. ASUS is ready to start shipping the VivoTab RT (TF600), and we're guessing it's pretty darn close to whatever Franken-tablet you've been dreaming up. Which is to say, it takes everything we loved about ASUS' Transformer Pads, and adds Windows RT. Like other tablets in ASUS' lineup, it has a 10-inch Super IPS+ display with claimed 178-degree viewing angles and a 600-nit brightness rating. Other tried-and-true specs include a quad-core Tegra 3 chip; an 8-megapixel, autofocusing rear camera capable of recording 1080p video; SonicMaster audio; and long battery life -- in this case, up to nine hours for the tablet and up to seven for the keyboard dock. At 8.3mm thick and 1.2 pounds, it's also about as thin and light as any Transformer Pad. Lastly, the VivoTab has NFC -- something you won't find on any of ASUS' older slates.

The VivoTab RT should be available beginning today, starting at $599 for the 32GB tablet with a keyboard dock included. A 64GB tablet-and-dock bundle will retail for $699. So is this as good a buy as ASUS' earlier tablets. And how does it compare to other Windows RT devices being offered at a similar price? Let's find out.%Gallery-169139%

In case you haven't heard, a lot -- and we mean a lot -- of Windows devices are going on sale this week. Today it's ASUS' turn to give its lineup a formal coming-out party: the company is hosting a press event here in New York City, where it just announced the dockable VivoTab RT will be available on October 26th, starting at $599 for the 32GB model, keyboard included. Alternatively, you can buy the 64GB tablet and docking station for $699. As we previously reported, an LTE version is coming to AT&T. Finally, ASUS says it will also sell the tablet and dock individually, but we haven't yet learned final pricing for those items. We'll update this post when we do. %Gallery-169136%

If this is your first introduction to the VivoTab RT, here's a quick recap: it basically offers everything people loved about ASUS' Android-based Transformer tablets, except it runs Windows RT instead. Like the Infinity and other recent ASUS tablets, it has a 600-nit Super IPS+ display, offering 178-degree viewing angles and Gorilla Glass protection. Other specs include a quad-core Tegra 3 chip (the new T30, to be exact), 2GB of RAM, NFC and an 8-megapixel rear camera with an auto-focusing f/2.2 lens. Then there's that keyboard dock, which has a USB 2.0 port and built-in battery rated for seven hours. (The tablet itself is said to last up to nine hours.) Finally, of course, as a Windows RT device it comes loaded with all of the same stock applications you'll find in full Windows 8 (Mail, IE 10, etc.), along with Office 2013 Home & Student. The main difference: you won't be able to install legacy Windows programs.

The VivoTab RT arrives the same day as the Surface for Windows RT and indeed, we'll be eager to compare the two, especially since pricing for the keyboard-tablet bundles is identical. In fact, ASUS sent us one to test, and you can expect a review any day now. Until then, we've embedded some press photos below, in case you're just getting your first look.

Want an early glimpse of the VivoTab RT without having to attend ASUS' special event? Thanks to our tipster, you've got it. An Office Depot has received at least one example of the Windows RT slate a full three days in advance. The short impressions: it's an "awesome" Tegra 3-packing tablet, although the OS reportedly chews up more than half of the 32GB of storage, and USB depends on an adapter if you're not relying on the keyboard. While price wasn't immediately available, we're not expecting retail to deviate greatly from the $599 pre-order formula. %Gallery-169117%

AT&T just packed a one-two punch of holiday tablet news, announcing that it's going to serve as the exclusive US carrier for both ASUS's VivoTab RT and Samsung ATIV Smart PC, both of which were originally unveiled this summer. The ASUS offers up a quad-core processor, LTE and a 10.1-inch IPS display in a thin and light form factor. The somewhat beefy Samsung, on the other hand, has an 11.6 inch HD PLS display, 1.5GHZ processor and 64GB of storage. Not much on specifics on availability at this point, beyond the fact that both will be hitting AT&T's site and stores "in time for the holidays."

Windows 8 tablets have had their specs bandied about for months, but their prices have continued to remain off the radar. Now, however, a purported ASUS holiday roadmap sent to ZDNet may give us a glimpse as to how badly bank accounts could be affected this fall. According to the slide, the ASUS Vivo Tab will carry a $799 price tag and its Windows RT counterpart will come in at $599, which matches the previously reported price difference between slates running Redmond's latest OS with Intel and AMD processors. The ASUS Taichi dual-screen notebook / tablet hybrid is said to ring up at a heftier $1,299. As for the firm's Transformer Book, it will supposedly set purchasers back $1,399. If these prices are any indication of what we can expect from other OEMs, Microsoft's Surface might be pricier than hoped.

It looks like IFA will be where many Windows 8 devices shown back at Computex get (more) official. Exhibit A is ASUS, which today pulled the curtains on the Vivo Tab and the Vivo Tab RT, previously known as the ASUS Tablet 810 and the ASUS Tablet 600, respectively. There's still no pricing info available, but the company has filled in some of the remaining spec gaps.

As we previously knew, the Vivo Tab sports an 11.6-inch IPS display with a 1,366 x 768 resolution and supports a Wacom digitizer input in addition to 10-point multitouch. The tablet runs an Intel Atom CPU with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The Vivo Tab measures 0.33 inches thick and weighs in at 1.5 pounds. There's also an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, plus a 2-megapixel shooter up front. As we learned back in Taipei as well, an NFC sensor will be on board.

Then there's the Vivo Tab RT, which is slightly smaller, at 0.33 inches thick and 1.1 pounds, and with a 10.1-inch screen. Like its non-RT brother, it boasts an IPS display with a 1,366 x 768 resolution, but it runs a Tegra 3 processor and a 12-core GPU, with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The RT tablet includes the same cameras and NFC sensor as the Vivo Tab.

Of course, these two slates also come with a Transformer-like dock, which adds a full QWERTY keyboard, trackpad, two USB ports and a second battery. The missing element to this equation is still pricing and availability: check back for those details, and in the meantime hit up the press release below the break.